• Some wonder if the mayor of London is really cut out for the hurly-burly of bare-knuckle politics. He arouses strong opinions, but at the end of the day he's human. Thus it is inevitable that he should know of those who have slighted him. One such is the Daily Mail columnist Amanda Platell. In 2010, referring to his libidinous activities, she posed a question: "Is Boris any different from feckless fathers on sink estates?" The knife went deep. "Boris's sexual antics display the sort of reckless selfishness and contempt for women we'd expect from some 'babyfather' thug on the worst inner London sink estates," she said. "Not from the mayor of our capital city." Their paths crossed again on BBC Radio 5 Live three months later, and once again Platell was merciless. Boris said those who swear at the police should be prosecuted. Platell verbally boxed his ears. And this may well explain why preparations for a lunch between the mayor and the political staff of the Daily Mail were thrown into 11th-hour turmoil this week. Despite weeks of planning, a message was conveyed from City Hall; if Platell is there, the mayor won't come. The Mail is many things, but to its credit, it isn't there to be blackmailed. And we know the sort of damage the paper could do to a disliked candidate prior to an election. So Platell had lunch at the venue close to City Hall. So did Boris. It went off just fine.

• With their "millionaires' budget", the big beasts in the coalition seem more united than ever, but the knives are still out for Vince Cable. True believers won't forget how he slated them as "backward-looking" the other day. And you just can't trust him, they say. On Monday, when the Tories trooped united through the lobbies to water down the rights of workers to avail themselves of unfair dismissal legislation, Vince was nowhere to be seen, even though the ruse was dreamt up by his department. But then, Vince has said that our labour market is already "one of the most flexible in the world".

• And opposition grows in the aftermath of that millionaires' budget. In the vanguard, the poets. "I've just had a late note – apologies from George Osborne," mocked poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy during a sold-out event at London's Southbank Centre to raise funds for independent poetry publishers Enitharmon. "He will be along later with a cheque." These poets are not to be trifled with. "Just before I was appointed poet laureate I had a poem banned from an exam syllabus," Duffy said. "It was a poem I'd written over 25 years ago, which I felt was anti-education cuts and anti-unemployment. An invigilator supervising an exam read the poem over a student's shoulder and decided I had written it to incite knife crime among the young of Britain. The anthology was then reprinted with a blank page without my knowledge." In Broken Britain, even the poets are off the rails.

• A big day in the House of Lords. Eleven years after ascending to this higher, better place, Lord Heseltine made his maiden speech. He gave peers the benefit of his long experience in government and on the economy. He will review how government can improve relations with the private sector to boost economic development. Peers, who've long waited to hear him pronounce, were amused to hear him say he wanted to update them "at the earliest opportunity". Notable, not least because this leaves Lady Falkender, 80 this month, unchallenged as the member of the Lords who has gone longest without making a speech. Marcia Williams (as then she was) became a peer in the "lavender list" following Harold Wilson's resignation as PM in April 1976. Lady Falkender is infirm of late, so perhaps the moment for her debut has gone but she has been, until recently, a vigorous attender. Lord Heseltine has never made any claim for attendance at the Lords, but last year, Lady Falkender claimed £9,300 in attendance allowances and £1,928 in travel, for giving the Lords the benefit of her presence there. But that is the way the system works. And most would say she still brings a certain class to the old place.

• Officials do whatever they can get away with. Consider the recent case of an asylum seeker visited by the UK Border Agency. He resisted arrest, saying that he had a hospital appointment and tried to show the officers the letter. Things got ugly. He complained about the arrest and the fact that officers injured him. This drew from UKBA an admission that officers forced entry into his bedroom, that they handcuffed him the wrong way, causing pain, that force was used and that at one point he was indeed held lying in the road minus his underwear. For all that, complaint rejected. "UKBA is committed to providing a courteous and professional service," the letter said.

• Finally, in Todmorden, west Yorkshire, Labour hopes to take a council seat from the Tories, but recently the party lost its candidate. Local activists found another. Just one problem, for, despite her past as a parliamentary candidate, council candidate and constituency chair, administrative problems resulted in the non-payment of a few subscriptions. Seems fixable, but no one within the party's national compliance office seems inclined to do that. Could someone have a grudge against Steph Booth, or indeed her stepson-in-law, Tony Blair?